State records show Bush re-election concerns played part in FEMA aid

Megan O'Matz & Sally KestinStaff Writers

As the second hurricane in less than a month bore down on Florida last fall, a federal consultant predicted a "huge mess" that could reflect poorly on President Bush and suggested that his re-election staff be brought in to minimize any political liability, records show.

Two weeks later, a Florida official summarizing the hurricane response wrote that the Federal Emergency Management Agency was handing out housing assistance "to everyone who needs it without asking for much information of any kind."

The records are contained in hundreds of pages of Gov. Jeb Bush's storm-related e-mails initially requested by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel Oct. 13.

The governor's office finally released the documents Friday, after threat of a lawsuit by the newspaper.

Democrats in Washington said the records confirm suspicions that the federal government used the hurricanes to funnel money to Florida, a key battleground state in the presidential election. "They weren't really asking for information, yet they were just doling out this money like it was Christmas," said Lale Mamaux, spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Boca Raton.

"It's not surprising to learn that [Republicans] played politics with the hurricanes that tragically affected hundreds of thousands of Floridians last year," said Josh Earnest, spokesman for the Democratic National Committee.

FEMA officials, the governor and the White House have steadfastly denied suggestions that politics played a role in the distribution of hurricane aid in Florida.

"The men and women at FEMA don't give a patooey about who the president is or who the governor is," FEMA Director Michael D. Brown told the newspaper's editorial board in October. "Whenever people say stuff like that we're just offended by that because that's just not how we operate."

But politics was foremost on the mind of FEMA consultant Glenn Garcelon, who wrote a three-page memo titled "Hurricane Frances -- Thoughts and Suggestions," on Sept. 2.

The Republican National Convention was winding down, and President Bush had only a slight lead in the polls against Democrat John Kerry. Winning Florida was key to the president's re-election. FEMA should pay careful attention to how it is portrayed by the public, Garcelon wrote in the memo, conveying "the team effort theme at every opportunity" alongside state and local officials, the insurance and construction industries, and relief agencies such as the Red Cross.

"What FEMA cannot afford to do is back itself into a corner by feeling it has to be the sole explainer and defender for everything that goes wrong," he wrote. "Further, this is not what the President would want. Plenty is going to go wrong, and his Department of Homeland Security does not want to assume responsibility for all of it."

Garcelon, a former FEMA employee, recommended that "top-level people from FEMA and the White House need to develop a communication strategy and an agreed-upon set of themes and communications objectives."

"Communication consultants from the President's re-election campaign should be brought in," he wrote. "Above all, everybody's got to understand that no amount of flogging DHS/ FEMA will insure that the recovery will go perfectly. This is going to be a huge mess. The public needs to be prepared for it."

FEMA officials said Tuesday that they did not ask Garcelon to write the memo and did not act on his recommendations.

"It wasn't even part of the equation," said Brad Gair, FEMA's federal coordinating officer, who was in charge of the agency's housing response in Florida and received a copy of the memo. "I had no contact whatsoever with anyone from the White House nor anyone from the president's re-election team."

The White House referred questions Tuesday to FEMA and the Republican National Committee.

"We are not aware that anyone at the Bush campaign received this information at any point," said Danny Diaz, committee spokesman.

Weeks after it was written, the memo made its way to Gov. Bush's chief of staff, Denver Stutler, who forwarded it to the governor Sept. 30. Bush did not see the report, nor was it used by the state, said the governor's spokesman, Jacob DiPietre.

Reached Tuesday at his home in Oregon, Garcelon said he "dashed off" the memo while on an airplane. "It was strictly my own personal perspective on things."

Working for Fluor Federal Services, a large firm that provides engineering and construction services to the government, Garcelon had been in Florida working on housing assistance for FEMA.

Garcelon said he gave the report to his colleagues at Fluor and to Ted Litty in FEMA's recovery division in Washington.

"I never got any response from FEMA," Garcelon said. "I don't know if anybody in a position of authority ever got it."

Dan McLaughlin, spokesman for U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla, said he was not surprised "that a consultant for the Bush administration would consider politics before the needs of hurricane victims."

"The very first points [of Garcelon's memo] have to do with shirking blame and calling in the president's re-election experts," McLaughlin said. " It only serves to underscore why we have to investigate how FEMA spent the hurricane money because there are just too many questions."

FEMA has been under scrutiny since the Sun-Sentinel first reported in October that the agency was awarding millions of dollars in disaster funds to residents of Miami-Dade County, even though the county did not experience hurricane conditions. At Nelson's urging, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee is investigating. Earlier this month, 14 Miami-Dade residents who received assistance were indicted on fraud charges.

As of March 16, FEMA had given $31 million to 12,891 applicants in Miami-Dade for damage claimed from Frances.

The grants are intended to help people find temporary housing, repair damage to homes and replace personal items, such as TVs, microwaves, computers and furniture.

Garcelon, in his memo, cautioned that processing applications for assistance after Frances in case of a catastrophic housing need could be overwhelming for FEMA, which was still dealing with the ramifications of Hurricane Charley.

"A logical and defensible means for establishing blanket eligibility must be developed," he wrote, suggesting that FEMA rely on aerial photographs and computerized mapping in deciding where to deliver aid.

"Cannot allow an inspection backlog to develop," he wrote of the process of examining each home for damage. "Everything points in that direction unless we get creative here."

Florida did not sustain catastrophic damage, Gair said, and so did not devise a "blanket eligibility" plan.

FEMA acknowledged that in Miami-Dade County and in other areas of the state, however, the agency took the rare step, given the magnitude of the disaster, of awarding $726 in "expedited" housing assistance to people who asked for it, without immediately sending inspectors to verify damage.

In a Sept. 13 memo to Gov. Bush and other top state officials, Orlando J. Cabrera, executive director of the Florida Housing Finance Corp. and a member of the governor's Hurricane Housing Work Group, wrote after a meeting with FEMA that the agency was allocating short-term rental assistance to "everyone who needs it, without asking for much information of any kind."

Other so-called "standard housing assistance," of up to $25,600, he wrote, is "liberally provided without significant scrutiny of the request made during the initial months; scrutiny increases remarkably and the package is far more stringent after an unspecified time."

Even state officials were surprised at how quickly money flowed to Florida.

The day after Hurricane Charley hit the west coast, the state's labor chief, Susan Pareigis, asked for a federal grant for unemployment assistance for storm victims.

Four days later, U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao "was down personally" to award the money, Pareigis wrote in an Aug. 24 e-mail to the governor. "Please express our sincere thank you for such an instantaneous response."

The governor forwarded her e-mail to White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card in less than 10 minutes.

"Please tell the President and your team how grateful we are," Gov. Bush wrote. "The response has been awesome from FEMA and other departments."

Megan O'Matz can be reached at momatz@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4518.